About Me

A blog where we post whatever we want. A focus on music, obscure film, and more.
Many links are our own uploads, but just as many are taken from other blogs. If you have a problem with us having your links on our blog, we are glad to take them down.
Female Trouble is maintained by Garrett (ZOOM LENS), Michelle, and Megane-Kun (Drink Cold).
If there is something that you think we may have that you wish to ask for, do not hesitate to ask us! Please email gyyguy@yahoo.com. The Female Trouble email is not checked.

Ero-guro fans rejoice! Jun Hayami's work is finally to be published in English by Creation Books in a collection entitled Beauty Labyrinth of Razors! This work was originally supposed to be released in 2005, but was pulled back for.... obvious reasons. Now it is finally being released on hardback with only 69 copies being made. It compiles 12 of Jun Hayami's stories. The only downside is that the book is on quite the pricey end, being $79before shipping. Personally, I really wish I could own such a work of art, but I don't think I can be spending that kind of money.

The full description of the collection is this:

"Graphic art by Jun Hayami in the Japanese “erotic-grotesque” (ero-guro) style of manga, a unique fusion of sex, violence and philosophy unlike anything seen in Western comics. Deranged killers, innocent young women and leering perverts collide in some of the most feverishly lurid fantasies ever committed to paper.

Beauty Labyrinth Of Razors is a compendium of Jun Hayami’s most challenging work, containing 12 stories selected from his books and never before translated and published in English. With a translation by James Havoc and Takako Shinkado, and an introduction by Jack Hunter (author, Eros In Hell)."

For those of you who don't know Jun Hayami, he is possibly one of the most extreme artists of the ero-guro genre. Unlike people like Suehiro Maruo who's craft is fixated on lavish illustrations that throwback to traditional Japanese muzan-e prints and who's stories revolve around the literature of classic novelists like Edogawa Rampo, Jun Hayami is relentless in his brutality, with little subtlety presented in his violence. Although other ero-guro artists may be more extreme than Hayami in a certain sense, Hayami's craft focuses on perversions so intense and real that they will most likely break into your consciousness and destroy your psyche, dragging you into the ugly depths of the grotesquely erotic, putting on display the sick fantasies which corrupt many a human being.

While it may be easy to justify other works of ero-guro, Hayami's is a difficult one to present to others. Is it an effort at humor that only the most senile and depraved of us can truly derive laughter from? Or is it simply art for the sake of showing the grotesque and perverse reality that we often shun from our everyday thoughts? Are the works of Jun Hayami to even be considered art?

Whether Hayami's work is really something to be interpreted or not, if you have not read him before you definitely should. Even if it is something that may not particularly pique your interest, to just fathom the mere existence of his work is something that will forever change you.

For those who are familiar with his work, are you planning to buy this?

This name will most likely strike a sense of unfamiliarity among most people, but chances are you more than likely know his music. If you were anything like me (and I mean that in the sense of you being a kid of the 90s) you were most likely caught up in the Pokemon craze. The one thing in particular that stands out in Pokemon that many may have not appreciated when they were younger is the music, and Junichi Masuda is the man to thank for that.

(To the left, Junichi Masuda)

Junichi Masuda was one of the main founders of the company, Game Freak, and has composed the music for a large majority of the Pokemon video game series and television shows. He himself was the sole composer of the original Red & Green versions of Pokemon and was even responsible for the cries of the Pokemon used within the game, all thanks to a program he created called the "Sound Driver."

Unless the last.fm trolls just got to his profile, apparently some of his favorite music includes Stravinsky, Linkin Park, Slipknot, The Prodigy, and Rotterdam hardcore. Who ever thought that 'Smack My Bitch Up' was an important influence on Pokemon?

Nowadays Pokemon still seems to be relatively prevalent in Japan, but has had severely decreased popularity in the states, it's core following now grown up. Pokemon seems to be something held on for nostalgia's sake, and only for that reason, as if Pokemon is a kind of novelty to be treated purely as a childhood memory and to like it beyond those reasons is well... childish. Personally, I do like Pokemon for those reasons, it does indeed bring back memories, however, still to this day I believe that Pokemon is a damn good game, "childish" or not, and I am not embarrassed at all to admit that.

If you are ever wondering who to thank for the flood of nostalgia and tears that overcome you when playing your version of Red or Blue on Gameboy, you have Junichi Masuda to thank.

Denki Groove is a hard group to categorize, falling somewhere between the technopop melodies of Yellow Magic Orchestra, but infused with the avant-garde like, new wave sensibilities of their previous group, Zin-Say. Their sound hits a strange middle-ground where structurally it can be considered dance music, but it is too experimental to be so. This album features perhaps their most well-known song, Shangri-La, which contains a sample of the disco instrumental, Spring Rain. If you're feeling like something experimental, but with pop sensibilities and that you can grind a bitch to, then this be da record for you right now.